
Jhabua is a town and a
municipality
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
in
Jhabua district in the
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
of
Madhya Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...
. It is the administrative headquarters of Jhabua District.
Recently the district has got international recognition because of its endemic hen species "kadaknath". It has been granted the GI tag.
History
The ancestor of the family was Rao Bar Singh a.k.a. the Birji, fifth son of
Jodha of Mandore
Rao Jodha Rathore (28 March 1416 – 6 April 1489) was the 15th Rajput chief of Rathore clan who ruled the Kingdom of Marwar in the present-day state of Rajasthan. He was the eldest son of Rao Ranmal (Rao Ridmal). He is known for his illustrio ...
of
Marwar
Marwar (also called Jodhpur region) is a region of western Rajasthan state in North Western India. It lies partly in the Thar Desert. 'Maru' is a Sanskrit word for desert. The word 'wad' literally means fence in Rajasthani languages. Engl ...
. His descendant, Kunwar Kesho Das or Kishan Das, founded Jhabua in 1584.
Raja Kesho Das was first Raja of Jhabua 1584/1607. He was granted the title of Raja by the Emperor of Delhi, as a reward for a successful campaign in Bengal, and for punishing the Bhil chiefs of Jhabua who had murdered an Imperial Viceroy of Gujarat.
Khushal Singh was the ruler of Jhabua in 1698, he gave much of his lands to his brothers and sons and was too weak to rule his state effectively. This allowed the
Maratha
The Marathi people (; Marathi: , ''Marāṭhī lōk'') or Marathis (Marathi: मराठी, ''Marāṭhī'') are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are native to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-A ...
s to actively invade Jhabua on a regular basis. Raja Shiv Singh was an infant and therefore the states administration during this time was managed by the raja's mother and the nobles. The Marathas under
Holkar
The Holkars (pronunciation: �o(ː)ɭkəɾ were the ruling house of the Indore State of the Maratha Confederacy, and earlier held the rank of Subahdar under Peshwa Baji Rao I of the Maratha Empire. When the Maratha Confederacy began to we ...
took advantage of this situation to take control of Jhabua. The threat from Jai Singh of
Sailana
Sailana is a town in the Malwa region of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. Sailana is from Ratlam city and away from Banswara district of the neighboring state of Rajasthan.
Sailana was once the capital of the Sailana State before it merged i ...
forced the nobles of Jhabua to rely on
Maratha protection, Holkar thus sent his officers to manage the states affairs.
[Malwa in Transition Or a Century of Anarchy: The First Phase, 1698-1765, published in 1993, pg.185, 282]
/ref> Jhabua later came under British protection in 1817 A.D. and was under the Bhopawar Agency
Bhopawar Agency was a sub-agency of the Central India Agency in British India with the headquarters at the town of Bhopawar, so the name. Bhopawar Agency was created in 1882 from a number of princely states in the Western Nimar and Southern M ...
of the Central India Agency
The Central India Agency was created in 1854, by amalgamating the Western Malwa Agency with other smaller political offices which formerly reported to the Governor-General of India. The agency was overseen by a political agent who maintained ...
and in 1927 it became part of the Malwa Agency
Malwa Agency was an administrative section of British India's Central India Agency. The headquarters of the political agent was at Neemuch (Nimach). The other chief towns of the region were : Ratlam and Jaora.
History
The Malwa Agency was ...
.There were 20 families of rank in the state who paid £1500 to the Holkars and £2500 to their own chief.
In 1875 the state had a population of 55,000 and a revenue of £22,500. After India's independence in 1947, Jhabua's last ruler signed the accession to the Indian Union on 15 June 1948, and Jhabua became part of the newly created Madhya Bharat
Madhya Bharat, also known as Malwa Union, was an Indian state in west-central India, created on 28 May 1948 from twenty-five princely states which until 1947 had been part of the Central India Agency, with Jiwajirao Scindia as its Rajpramuk ...
state, which in 1956 was merged into Madhya Pradesh.
Jhabua Princely State
Jhabua was the capital of a princely state of the British Raj
The British Raj ( ; from Hindustani language, Hindustani , 'reign', 'rule' or 'government') was the colonial rule of the British The Crown, Crown on the Indian subcontinent,
*
* lasting from 1858 to 1947.
*
* It is also called Crown rule ...
's Central India
Central India refers to a geographical region of India that generally includes the states of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
The Central Zonal Council, established by the Government of India, includes these states as well as Uttar Prades ...
, in the Bhopawar
Bhopawar Agency was a sub-agency of the Central India Agency in British India with the headquarters at the town of Bhopawar, so the name. Bhopawar Agency was created in 1882 from a number of princely states in the Western Nimar and Southern Mal ...
agency. Its area, with the dependency of Rutanmal, was approx . The Rajas of Jhabua belonged to the Rathor dynasty.
Post-Independence
After India's independence in 1947, its rulers acceded to India, and Jhabua became a part of the newly created Madhya Bharat
Madhya Bharat, also known as Malwa Union, was an Indian state in west-central India, created on 28 May 1948 from twenty-five princely states which until 1947 had been part of the Central India Agency, with Jiwajirao Scindia as its Rajpramuk ...
state, which in 1956 was merged into Madhya Pradesh.
Bhabhara which was once part of the Jhabua district, is the place where Chandrasekhar Azad
Chandra Shekhar Sitaram Tiwari (23 July 1906 – 27 February 1931), popularly known as Chandra Shekhar Azad, was an Indian revolutionary who reorganised the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA) under its new name of Hindustan Socialist Repub ...
, the freedom fighter spent his early life when his father Pandit Sitaram Tiwari was serving in the erstwhile estate of Alirajpur
Alirajpur is a city in the Alirajpur tehsil in Alirajpur district in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India.
Alirajpur State was formerly a princely state of India, under the Bhopawar Agency in Central India. It lay in the Malwa region of Madhya ...
. But, when Alirajpur district (which was once the part of Jhabua district) got separated from Jhabua, Bhabhra became the part of Alirajpur district.
Geography
Jhabua has an average elevation of 318 metres (1043 feet). Jhabua is located at the bottom left side of MP, mainly towards Gujarat.
Demographics
India census
A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...
, Jhabua had a population of 30,577. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. As per 2011 census, Jhabua has an average literacy rate of 44%. Male literacy is at 54% and female literacy is 34%. In Jhabua, 20% of the population is under 6 years of age.
Jhabua city is famous for its black cotton soil commonly known as "White Gold". There are many interesting places in Jhabua Thasil.
More than 65% of Population is below poverty line.
Educational status of Jhabua
There is one government college SCAMV (Shaheed Chandra Shekhar Azad Mahavidyalaya) which imparts post graduate education and a government engineering college Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam UIT Jhabua.
Some of the private colleges are Maa Tripura College of Nursing, Padma College of Education, Maa Sharda College of Nursing, Maa Sharda College of Education. Some of the top English schools are Kendriya Vidyalaya, New Catholic Mission School, Sharda Vidhya Mandir and Keshav International School.
People
* Kantilal Bhuria
Kantilal Bhuria (born 1 June 1950; ) is an Indian politician and a member of Indian National Congress and was till July 2011 the Minister of Tribal Affairs of the Republic of India. He had been promoted to the rank of cabinet minister in the ...
, Tribal leader & Politician.
* P T Thomas, Linguist and Bible Translator
References
External links
*
{{Princely states of India
Cities and towns in Jhabua district
Cities in Malwa